Three Hundred and Sixty Six Days
by irismay42
Summary: Dean's last five minutes on Earth. WARNING: Deathfic. Kind of. Oneshot. Complete. SPOILERS for Season Three.


**A/N: **So I'm not entirely sure where this came from. I was supposed to be writing a Virtual Season episode and this happened instead. I won't tell if you don't.

**Disclaimer:** I make even less money than the striking writers. i.e. None.

**WARNING! WARNING!** Here be Deathfic (sort of). So don't read it if you don't like it. I've never actually written a deathfic before so it probably sucks. Not beta'd. Barely proof read. Er. Enjoy.

**THREE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SIX DAYS**

"Silence is golden, huh Dean?"

He hadn't heard the Hellhounds for five hours now. Five hours and two hundred and fifty-seven miles.

But the man standing in front of him knew that; after all, he'd been the one to call them off.

Dean used the term "man" loosely, as a frame of reference only. The creature before him had ceased to be a man long ago. Three hundred and sixty-six days, to be precise.

Dean didn't know what he was now.

"Yeah, thanks for that," Dean said coldly, eyeing the creature warily as it stalked around him in ever-decreasing circles. "All that howlin' was messin' with my Zeppelin."

The creature snorted. "Happy to make your final hours more comfortable, Dean," he said, an insincere smile leeching across handsome, boyish features.

Dean made an exaggerated show of glancing at his watch. "You got five minutes," he said, trying to ignore the trembling in his legs as a part of him almost wished for it to be over. "You got time to wax my car if you really wanna offer me the full VIP service."

A coldly unamused smile flitted across the creature's face. "_You_ don't have time for that, Dean," he said, unnecessarily emphasizing the first word. "We have someplace to be."

Dean nodded blithely. "Nice of you to come for me in person," he observed. "You know, considering you could have just sent your little doggies to drag me down to Hell without your even having to get up off of that big fiery throne of yours."

The creature raised an eyebrow and momentarily ceased his pacing, and Dean's forehead crinkled in exaggerated surprise.

"Dude, you _gotta_ have a throne!" he taunted. "You're telling me Daddy was too cheap to spring for a throne? _Dude!_ I'd check that Last Will and Testament of his again if I were you."

"He wasn't my 'daddy,'" the creature was a little too quick to point out, the tiniest hint of resentment creeping into his voice. "He was my mentor," he corrected, resuming his circling like a vulture staking out a juicy carcass.

Except it wasn't Dean who reeked of death.

He could smell it on the erstwhile young man, so close was he now, circling, pacing, head lowered slightly so they were at eye level.

"And as for his 'Will?'" the creature continued, stopping abruptly in front of Dean, face so close Dean could smell his fetid breath: Decay. Death. Brimstone. "You know it's thanks to his 'Will' that you and I are here today, isn't it, Dean? Three hundred and sixty-five days later."

"Three hundred and sixty-six," Dean corrected him with a sunny grin. "Leap year. I got an extra day."

The creature snorted again. "You always were a lucky one, Dean," he said. He glanced around himself, taking in his surroundings with the detached air of a casual observer: the deserted Western town; the windmill where only last year a young girl had tragically breathed her last; the bell with the oak tree emblazoned on the front that had definitely seen better days. "Why _are_ we here exactly, Dean? Why _here_? Why Cold Oak? Why not the crossroads? Or that dingy little cowboy cemetery in Wyoming? The hospital where you lost your dad? Lawrence? Your childhood home? You could have chosen anywhere to die, Dean. Why choose here?"

"Vegas was booked solid," Dean quipped dryly. "And I'm all out of frequent flyer miles."

The creature nodded mirthlessly. "Never were one for flying, were you Dean? Well, don't worry. Where you're headed, you definitely won't need wings."

Dean swallowed. "So, you gonna monologue me all the way to Hell?" he asked, gameface slamming down so fast and so hard it was almost audible. "'Cause I really got better things to do with my eternity."

The creature shook his head, waggled his finger and made a patronizing "tut-tut" sound. "Aw, poor little Dean Winchester. Still under the misapprehension it's _his_ eternity."

Dean didn't say anything, just gritted his teeth and squared his shoulders.

"Y'know, my mentor might not have bequeathed me a throne on which to rule in his stead," the creature continued. "But at least he had the foresight to leave me the deeds to that pesky little Contract of yours, Dean."

Dean swallowed again, blinking hard and trying not to flinch when that too-young face was thrust so close to his own.

"Your eternity? I own it now. In case you forgot. Owned it the second you fired that magic bullet of yours and took Azazel right out of the picture." He grinned, short and fast, dimpling cheeks completely incongruous with the Hellfire burning deep in his hazel eyes. "Thanks for that, by the way," he added, almost as an afterthought. "No one wants to be Prince of Hell when they can be King, now do they?"

"Coup d'état," Dean nodded. "By proxy. I get it."

"You never answered my question." The young man resumed his circling, so close Dean could feel the chilling absence of body heat. "Why here? Why meet the new boss in a godforsaken place like this?" He chuckled at his own joke. "No pun intended."

Dean averted his eyes as much as he was able, with the man completely filling his field of vision the way he was. "Because this is where it ended," he explained shortly, casting his gaze down upon the muddy ground beneath his feet. "This is where I lost him."

"Ah." The creature pulled back slightly. "Sammy. It always comes back to Sammy, doesn't it? The alpha and the omega. The beginning and the end. It's always about Sammy."

Dean just glared at him, the truth of it clear in the naked anguish in his eyes. "You took him."

"Destiny."

"My brother."

"Your undoing. Face it, Dean, you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him."

"No. I wouldn't."

"Could have had it all – Mommy, Daddy; white picket fence; prom date, college, wife, two point four kids, dog. You lost everything because of him, Dean. You lost your _life_ because of him – this one _and_ the one you were supposed to have."

"I had the life I was supposed to have," Dean protested. "And none of it was his fault –"

"Just a baby," the creature nodded. "Couldn't have prevented what Azazel did to him. Couldn't have prevented what he did to your mom."

Dean looked up at him, the creature merely smiling.

"Yeah, you were Sammy's lifelong bitch alright, weren't you Dean?"

Dean met his mocking gaze squarely, jaw clenched stiffly. "Selling my soul was the least I would have done for him," he said quietly. "I'd have died for him a hundred times over."

"And he would have let you!" the creature returned. "Look where you are, Dean! He _left_ you to this. He left you _again_…"

"He didn't leave me." Dean's voice hardened. "Not by choice."

The man shrugged. "Yeah, well, sorry about that," he said, insincerity dripping from his words. "Destiny, schmestiny. What's a guy to do."

"You're not a guy," Dean told him, fairly snarling.

"No more than Sammy was," the creature agreed.

Dean's lip curled, fingers balling into fists at his sides.

"Forgive me, Dean. I know you still think Baby Brother was a saint and everything, but you know what you brought back was no more your brother than I am, right? You knew he came back "wrong." You didn't need Azazel to tell you that."

"No –"

"Of course, you did me a favor. 'Cause he wasn't the only one who preferred Sammy to Jake."

"_No_ –"

"And that's why we're here, right? At the place where Jake took your brother away from you for the last time? The place where Sammy died." He lowered his face again, lips almost brushing Dean's ear. "What's dead should stay dead, Dean. You know that. Better than anybody. Ironic thing is, _you_ never actually died. So technically what your dad did for you wasn't even remotely the same as what you did for Sammy. Sammy was dead and gone. Gone, Dean." He moved in even closer and Dean resisted the urge to pull away. "Where d'you think he went, Dean? After he died. While you were railing at God and the world and running off to sell your gutter soul to the first demon you could find with a penchant for kicked puppies?"

"I know where Sam went," Dean said softly through gritted teeth.

"Oh you do?" The creature sounded surprised.

"Yeah, I do," Dean confirmed. "And I know he never came back. Not really." He met the creature's cold gaze again. "I knew it wasn't him I brought back."

"No," the creature clamped a large hand on Dean's shoulder. "No it wasn't. Because that would be me."

Dean's eyes slid once more to the muddy ground around them until insistent fingers suddenly grabbed him by the chin, forcing him to look back up into eyes he'd known better than his own for twenty-five years. Eyes suddenly cold and unfamiliar. Wrong. Empty.

"Look at me."

Dean obeyed. "You're right," he said, straightening as he jerked his chin free of unfamiliarly familiar fingers. "You're right. I sold my soul for something I could never get back." He shrugged. "Should o' read the small print, I guess. Wound up selling my soul to bring back the thing that took my brother's in the first place. There's irony for you."

The creature laughed and it almost broke Dean's heart in two. "Jake would have suited my purposes at a pinch," he said. "But when my crossroads representative told me what you were planning? Well, it was just too good to resist! Better than a fire sale – buy one Winchester, get another free!" He stepped even closer, and this time Dean didn't look away. "Now you're just as much my bitch as you were Sammy's. I guess what goes around comes around."

Dean nodded. "You have no idea how true that is," he told the creature, squaring up to him despite the four inch difference in their height. "You may have my soul and Sam's face," he spat, glaring up at the thing that wasn't his brother, wasn't his Sam, not any more. "But therein lies the flaw in your cunning Masterplan, oh great Boy King of Hellfire." He stepped forward, only millimeters between them. "'Cause you ain't Sam. He's long gone. And you know what? Right now I can do whatever I like to weasel my way out of this Deal of ours because the only one who's gonna be rotting meat if I do is _you_, you sonofabitch!"

The thing with Sam's face blinked at him in surprise, as if not quite registering what he was saying.

"So who's the bitch now, Your Highness?" Dean asked, finally stepping back and drawing the Colt from beneath his jacket in one smooth movement.

The thing in Sam's skin laughed hollowly. "You wouldn't," he insisted, the smooth conviction in his voice slipping ever-so-slightly. "You _can't_! Used the last bullet –"

"Ruby says 'hi,' by the way," Dean said, all trembling gone from his body as he raised the gun to shoulder height and aimed it squarely at what had once been his baby brother's heart. "Any last words? That's a better deal than that yellow-eyed freak of a daddy of yours ever got."

"He's_not_ my –"

"I'll take that as a 'no.'"

Dean had seen the lightshow before.

Pull back on the trigger; bang; look of surprise in his little brother's eyes. Then the jerking, the spasming, like the demon was being electrocuted from Sam's body.

Then it was over.

And Dean caught him as he fell – his body was still Sammy's after all – gently lowering his baby brother's hulking frame to the muddy ground, even as he looked up to where he'd just been standing and his eyes locked with familiar hazel.

"You did the right thing, Dean."

Dean blinked, nodding. "I know, Sammy," he agreed, after three hundred and sixty-six days no longer unnerved by the way his brother's image guttered in and out of his vision, or the way he could occasionally see straight through his chest. "I knew what I had to do. Even when you were lying dead in front of me."

"I wasn't sure you'd be able to see me," Sam said with a wry smile. "Not being the psychic of the family."

"And I'll never understand why you decided to haunt my ass instead of going to the Light, Carol-Ann." Dean looked back down at the cold body still held in his arms, shrugging slightly. "Besides," he added wistfully, brushing a stray lock of dark hair from his brother's forehead. "I'll always see you, Sammy. Wherever you go."

Sam nodded silently, blinking rapidly. He took a breath before shakily managing, "Speaking of which," in a falsely upbeat tone of voice. "My ride's here."

Dean looked up again, eyes drifting to the girl who suddenly emerged from thin air at Sam's right shoulder. "Ruby," he said, bobbing his head in acknowledgement. "You look out for him up there for me."

The girl smiled, genuine and honest, inexplicable sunlight glinting in her eyes and her hair. "I got it covered," she told him. "Don't worry, Dean. He'll be waiting when it's your turn."

Dean nodded again. "He better be," he insisted, before adding, "Thanks. For everything." He grinned lopsidedly. "Quite a performance you put in there, sweetheart. You deserve an Emmy."

Ruby shrugged, her tone suddenly serious. "Demons aren't that different from my kind, Dean," she said. "Fallen. That's all."

"Still," Dean said, inclining his head towards his little brother's lifeless corpse. "Couldn't have taken this thing out of the world without your help."

"You drew him out Dean, not me," Ruby pointed out. "Offering him your soul? That was a pretty risky move."

"His idea," Dean tipped his head in Sam's direction. "He always was the brains of the family."

"Never thought you'd take my advice," Sam said slyly. "And I _really_ never thought you'd take the advice of a ghost!"

Dean rose slowly to his feet, carefully laying Sam's body back down on the ground. "Not all spirits are evil, Sammy," he said. "You taught me that."

Sam nodded, eyes locking with Dean's for the last time. "I have to go now," he said quietly, his voice subdued. "It's time. I've been here too long."

"Three hundred and sixty-six days," Dean agreed. "That was the Deal, after all."

Sam smiled. "No Hellhounds coming for either of us now."

"Hosts of Heavenly angels singing you to your eternal rest?" Dean glanced briefly at Ruby. "Well they better have _Stairway to Heaven_ in their back catalogue or they ain't getting _me_ up there."

"I got a few years to teach 'em," Sam assured him, grinning brightly. "That guitar solo'll kick ass on a harp." His expression sobered by degrees as he added, "You got your whole life ahead of you now, big brother."

Dean glanced behind him at the corpse laid out on the ground. "Maybe," he muttered, barely audibly.

"No maybes." Sam placed a hand against Dean's cheek, and even though he knew it wasn't possible, Dean swore he felt it graze his skin. "You live now, Dean. You've waited long enough. I have to go."

Dean blinked, fighting back the tears threatening to fall.

"Hey." Sam squeezed his shoulder. "No chick flick moments."

"Bitch."

"Jerk."

"Bye Dean."

"Bye Sammy."

**The End**

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Anyone not comatose, feel free to leave me a review! 


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